Inspiration from the Old

I need the taste of a thousand years.

I need dirt under my fingernails that once was a man a million years ago.

I need stone structures and wooden doors.

I need ancient.

I need great big walls to remind me.

Remind me that I’m small.

That the matters I worry about are the matters of a child.

That I am insignificant in the scheme of things.

Because that’s what I need to change.

To get out of this rut of self-pity, of self-absorbition.

I need something ancient and old to look at me with wisened and cracking eyes and say

YOU ARE NOTHING.

And in the face of the old and the decrepid

I will stare with jaws and knee locked and scream

OH YEAH?!?
JUST WATCH ME!

And with the ancient and the old around me I will become a phoenix

Rising out of the ashes of my all American Attitude

And become something to behold.

Something that is worth a mention.

Something that means a lot more than a poem

About the need for inspiration from the old.